


Lilies in the valley

by laughingpineapple



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Gen, Hiking, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Reversed Character Death, Time Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27150475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: Social hiking would not figure in Cabanela’s top 500 fun weekend activities – listicle enthusiasts may find it a couple hundred entries later, somewhere between “stuck in a hospital bed” and “reorganizing the toolbox for the principle of it, never to use it in his entire lifetime”. His troubles, however, run deeper than intense disgruntlement.
Relationships: Cabanela/Jowd (Ghost Trick)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Lilies in the valley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Red_Code](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Code/gifts).



> Hello! You mentioned any ship among the nominated characters so, not knowing how you feel about Alma, this fic remains Alma-agnostic! Could be there were frank talks between her and Jowd, could be an AU, could be whatever works for you!

_The wild Cabanela thrives in a narrow habitat, having developed highly specialized behaviors that make it excel in the precinct as well as in the nocturnal disco environments, but prove to be ill-suited outside its carefully curated ecological niche. We now get a rare look at the specimen as it scurries around the woods in stylish, brand new sports equipment which it will never wear again. Uncertain on its long, spindly legs, it is not fatigue that is on display: indeed, a healthy young specimen like this one could hop, flap, warble and preen for hours on end thanks to the lean, powerful muscles it has cultivated with its characteristic dancing. What we see here is dissatisfaction. Notice the nervous slant of its steps, the lowered brow, the disregard for social stimuli. It is lost and unsettled. Does it recognize what trees are? Does it know that a mule track serves, ultimately, the same purpose as its familiar bypass? We may never come to understand its mysterious behavior – what is it doing so far away from home? Pack mentality scarcely accounts for this fiercely independent wild creature’s decision to follow the commissioner’s invitation for a weekend up at his mountain lodge. What social favor is it hoping to curry, and is it ready to pay the price? Nature is wonderful._

“Quit it with the documentarizin’, maaan...”

“Am not.”

“Sure you are. It’s all there in the curve of the ‘stache, baby.”

Jowd raises his hands in a dramatic admission of guilt, ‘stache rising higher in a satisfied grin – there is something to say for the criminal’s desire to be caught.

“You’ve known me fiiive...” Cabanela stops in his tracks to do the math on his fingers, decide whether the right number is ten like the years Jowd lived in that other future, five like the ones he lived outside a jail cell or four like those five minus the one year they’ve already lived through again. Ultimately, he digs his fingernails in the palm of his hands and settles on his original hunch “...yes, five years more than I’ve known you. That only means I gotta pick up the slack and catch up, no big deeeal.”

“And ketchup. Big deal.”

“Jowd.”

There is a barely concealed pride in his words, more than Cabanela’s average. Between the lines, it says: remember, I see through you. Thing is, there is nothing interesting to see through Jowd. Certainly nothing to get angry about, yet Cabanela has been in a foul mood since their third hour of hiking, a mix of childish sulking and nervous energy that, to anyone who’s even a little fluent in his body language, reads like he’s masking the wound of a deep betrayal. If it is about work, sure, Jowd will be the first to admit that he is willing and ready to butter up the commissioner all weekend, but _he_ also enjoys some time up in the mountains, just like the three capable colleagues who make up the rest of the old man’s inner circle. If Cabanela regrets agreeing to tag along, it’s all on him. There is another option, but Jowd is not going to entertain it and anyway he doesn’t think it fits the evidence of Cabanela’s mood flipping a switch an hour and a half ago, so he will push it back into the deepest recesses of his brain, where it belongs.

For the sake of a scientific approach, it goes like this: when circumstances forced Jowd’s hand and he had to tell Cabanela about Sissel’s true nature and all it entailed, he was careful. He told his friend about their last meeting in that other timeline, how it was Cabanela’s thoughtful gambit that had allowed him, Sissel and Lynne to track Yomiel to their doom and eventual salvation. He did not tell him that it was in that moment, seeing him in that bloodied white coat, unguarded, dying, that Jowd realized the weight of all that Cabanela had done for him. He did not tell him about afterwards, in the submarine, when he allowed himself to admit that there was so much love behind those actions. An unbearable amount of love aimed at trash, really. Still flattering. And in the past year, getting to live the early days of their friendship again, he saw glimpses of that unfathomable mass, bursting through the seams of Cabanela’s controlled act. He had missed them all the first time through, yet there they were, unmistakable.

He told nothing of this, but he suspects that Cabanela, smart guy that he is, must have figured it out. He knows the secret he’s holding. He knows that Jowd got to see him at the one point of his life when he was coming undone. It is not rocket science.

But even then, he has never shown anger nor shame about it ever since their talk, which was a while ago now. And he can’t have figured out the rest exactly ninety minutes ago, can he? That Jowd cannot let those thoughts go? That the uncertainty of the first days has been turning into strength and comfort, that he has caught himself studying Cabanela’s hands, his lips, catching sight of the elegance of his slender frame, wondering, without daring to sharpen those unformed thoughts?

Surely not.

The mountains are beautiful today. Overcast mornings are the gods’ gift to hikers; the peaks ahead of them offer an ever-changing spectacle, now hidden by the clouds, now showing the full glory of their cliffs. If his finicky best friend cannot see that, it’s his loss, and that’s that on that.

The path is narrow through the riverbed. Jowd slips on a rock, finds himself staring at the dense gray sky for a moment that stretches forever as his balance cracks and he loses his footing, and falls. It may have been the moss, or some residual slime – it has rained recently, there are drops of water trickling down toward the valley, things get slippery. Or was it the guilt that is still trickling down, never dry, never erased, his mistake and Cabanela’s still casting their shadows from that day at the park, Yomiel’s in a wheelchair in jail, Lynne blocked off the memories of that day and Jowd never paid for it, never made up to anybody, never proved to be worth the pain he brought about. He keeps falling. He sees himself falling. Sees sharp rocks cut his back and legs. He thinks it hurts, and that this pain is a fair punishment, all things considered. Then the realization hits that he is looking at all this from above, seeing himself fall, falling himself as he observes this peculiar occurrence. Did he give up on his body and leave, looking at the wretch that is him from above? Or is he falling again and again, an eternal recursion? Where will he hit the ground and die, over and over?

Far down below, past immeasurable distances, lies the ocean. It may look like a lake, nested like a dark jewel between the mountain slopes, but it knows – and Jowd knows that it knows – that it is the ocean. They are old acquaintances, Jowd and the ocean. He knows its depths, he’d never mistake a simple lake for the real deal and this is his old pal expecting him with open arms. It is waiting for him, forever.

His body hits the water surface with a comical splash and Jowd wakes up, jolting upright in a cold sweat. It is night. Unfamiliar room: old wooden beams line the roof above him and two doves are carved on the headboard of his bed. Bright moonlight filters through the windows. The mountains fill the horizon. He is alive. He is lying in a bed in the commissioner’s holiday home in the mountains and he is alive, his heart is beating fast, sweat pooling in his brow, that’s his body being alive, however uncomfortably. The ocean is always waiting for him, but it is far away. Not here. Not now. Memories of the dream’s cold waters come into focus and make him stifle a sob: not now, not again. It is so easy to think that he deserves to be left rotting in the depths but he has fought so hard this past year to believe in the new future he’s been granted. He needs to breathe. The night’s sleep has lost all charm and this room feels like brine. Jowd grabs a sweater and his pants and tip-toes downstairs, toward the porch with his promise of fresh air.

The night is cold, like the water in the dream that he can’t shake off. Jowd feels like he is is still floating at an arm’s length from his body, at risk of being carried away by the softest breeze. From an open window on the ground floor, a portable radio whispers a waltz in its hoarse voice: this is not a night for sleeping, Jowd muses. As proof of that, leaning on one of the porch’s faux stone columns, Cabanela stares at the moon, uncharacteristically still.

“Theeere you are,” he says, hearing Jowd approach. “Now that nobody can hear us, are you gonna spit it out?”

There was a time when Jowd would have not believed a day would come when he would be affronted not to be addressed as ‘baby’, but as the saying goes, trust time travelers: they’ve seen the future and it sucks.

“Spit out _what_ , Cabanela.” Two can play the foul mood game.

“Do you thiiink I’m stupid?”

“I think you’re more than capable of zeroing in on the wrong idea.”

Cabanela hops away from the column to better stare at him in disbelief: this is an, no, _the_ asshole line and they both know it. Whatever he was about to reply dies in his throat; Jowd sees him count to ten by tapping his fingers before he eventually says: “...start again. You first. What the heckle are you doin’ out here at two in the morning.”

“I had a dream where I died,” Jowd replies, his voice flat. “First time in a while it happens.” What he doesn’t say: I dreamt I deserved it. It’s true, but everyone says I shouldn’t believe it.

“So… that’s iiit? That a thing that happens to you?”

“Why in the gods’ name shouldn’t it.”

“I can do this questionin’ thing aaall night, baby...”

“Great. Did I get my ‘baby’ privileges back or are we on double sarcasm.”

Cabanela raises an eyebrow. Jowd puts up a placid smile against that. Being on the receiving end of that piercing stare feels good. It makes him feel, for a few bright moments.

“Was Sissel part of iiit?”

“You don’t need to rewind dream deaths, my friend. You just need to rewire your brain. By which I mean I. I need to bash my brain in until it’s working right again.”

“Pray teeell, theeen… what was he doin’ in the strap on your backpack this mornin’ shortly after eleven thirty?”

Jowd shakes his head: Sissel was never with them.

This is a simple outing. A simple weekend. Sissel must be chasing ghost rats near the dumpster now, back home, in the city. But Cabanela insists:

“Tell your magical cat that if he’s makin’ the strap dance like kitty paws poking at it, he needs to follow the rhythm of your steps. Eeelse, it stands out. End up near a fella who knows what he’s lookin’ for and he’ll see it. You two don’t need silly ol’ me to tell you, he can’t afford to be careless.”

“Is this why _you_ are out there at two in the morning?”

“Tut-tut, detective. Slow on the uptake, are we?”

“Cabanela,” Jowd asks with creeping anxiety, “what happened this morning.”

And his friend laughs under his breath in disbelief – they have to be careful, can’t risk waking up the house, they are speaking in whispers, but there is the thundering energy of a shout in Cabanela’s words as he replies: “I don’t know. You never tell me anything.”

“Sissel…?” Jowd whispers.

A familiar shade of red hovers over his vision.

“Yes, Detective Jowd.”

“What happened.”  
“I was trying to protect you.”

Jowd does not know what to say to that.

“What’d he saaay? ‘cause he is here, isn’t he. In the lamplight, bet my coat.”

“That he was trying to protect me.” Jowd is trailing behind his body and the wind is rising and he will float away.

As in a nightmare, Cabanela keeps telling his version of the events, what he thinks is his version of the events, not the one he witnessed since he is not allowed to hold onto his memories. He talks like a man possessed, he is not well either, but for him, that means burning from the inside until all that’s left is ashes. He has been going through this in his mind over and over since this morning, when he spotted Sissel biding his time in Jowd’s backpack when the ghost had not been there before and now he repeats it in a feverish haze: it had to be an accident, nothing natural, not a landslide that would happen in all timelines, what happened was averted, so it has to be human error. Jowd slips, he thinks, and falls to his death. Cabanela himself, and here he is again second-guessing his own thoughts and actions, the memory of which was taken from him... Cabanela himself rushes back in town to make a call, faster than the commissioner and his mountain-climbing goons. Where does it happen? It is not important that he is faster, but he knows he was, because he could not bear to think of Jowd’s corpse down the escarpment. How long does it take? An hour? More? Sissel jumps through the phone, hops on whatever Cabanela is wearing that has a core for him to hijack, his pen has one, he thinks. An hour or more again, walking toward an impossible death, knowing that it will get better soon, Sissel must be able to reverse something as trivial as a hiking accident, yet at the end of the line remains Jowd’s bloodied corpse. Does he throw the pen that carried Sissel down the rocks, unwilling to get closer to the unfair messiness of the one death he could, would never accept? Does he climb down himself, never one to leave anything to chance, down to the green grass in the valley stained with blood? Where are the others, do they have the decency to mourn, do they try to comfort Jowd’s closest friend right there among them, do they think him mad for his strange actions, do they try to bar him from climbing down? Those events are lost forever. Sissel changed the flow of time; once again, they live in a better present and he should be grateful, he is grateful, but the loss of his own history haunts him. If he had not noticed that small incongruous detail, they would have left him behind, again.

_He climbed down, of course_ , Sissel confirms in their private thoughts tinged with red. _We made a good team even if he can’t hear me._ The ghost tries his best to offer some comfort, but in spirit alone, he lacks the thaumaturgic quality of a purring cat on one’s lap.

Jowd listens to this story about his corpse with the same detachment with which he saw it fall to its doom. It’s funny. His ties to his own body had gotten frayed, death after death after death, and now even Sissel’s efficient tiptoeing, reverting his fate before his soul could wake up and take stock of the situation, feels like it could shatter him.

“We are birds of a feather after all,” he says eventually, a hint of warmth in his voice for the stubbornness that brought them together in the precinct so many years ago and that has hurt them like clockwork since. “ _You_ could have told me, you ass. I thought you were angry about getting dirt on your new boots – where did you even find white hiking boots, please tell me they’re not custom. It’s nothing personal, my friend. I’m not really here on the best of days, what’s one more death? I did not notice.”

True to the metaphor, Cabanela balances himself on one leg like a wading bird. What a struggle to witness, this restrained yearning that underscores all his brilliance – he wants to move, to act, but there is so much at stake should his action turn out to be too much for the delicate ecosystem of their bond. The old radio fills their ears. It’s an old love song now, which can’t be helping matters, Jowd muses with a faint smile. Cabanela has a way of making all his acts feel grandiose, invisible theater spotlight trained on him at all times, and now the big drama seems to be that he doesn’t know when to give up. There’s an emptiness in Jowd that nothing can fill, which is not an invitation for anyone to throw away their life trying. Yet here he is. Jowd wonders what it would feel like if the restraint lost this one time, if some of the longing he carries in him made it through to his mouth and limbs. Eventually, he wonders what he himself would think of it. Hard to say, but his thoughts linger.

He blinks and all of a sudden Cabanela is holding his right hand and left shoulder, one moment he was there doing his contrite flamingo thing, the next he he has sprung to offer himself as, no, declare himself a dance partner with a decisiveness that leaves no room for questioning and pulls him close, swaying to the music.

At first Jowd thinks of tuna fish, how they can keep their body temperature high even in cold waters. He wonders whether hugging a tuna would feel as warm. He suspects that this thought might be construed as rude and for once in his life, he keeps it to himself.

Cabanela knows how to lead, because of course he does; the night is cold and their steps grow a little bolder, and it is a distinct joy to feel him close again after two measures where they only got to hold the tip of each other’s fingers. When his _friend_ , emboldened and euphoric (in charge, creating a moment that is just for them, that will not leave him behind), dares to slide his hand from Jowd’s shoulder to his back, the jolt makes him feel like living for the first time in sixteen hours.

It is not that hard, this dancing business. It works well enough if you can let go. An exercise in trust. Except his blasted knee, the traitor that was hit by the meteor shard and never quite healed how it was before, decides to give up on him and he falters. He finds himself looking at the black sky above for a moment that stretches forever as his balance cracks, he loses his footing, and-

the ocean waits for in the split second where his fall begins, with its comforting, crushing depths, Jowd can feel it roar in his ears, calling his name, and-

Cabanela pivots to a position where he can be firm on his feet and bolster him. Shaking under the effort, his arm is steel against Jowd’s back. They do not fall. They breathe together. Close. Alive.


End file.
